MadridTo a greater or lesser extent, we are all now worried about a political situation filled with uncertainty, but we are already becoming so accustomed to the fact that the day the tables are turned and clarity and balance reign, we will miss the incentives of this period. One of the effects of the constant crossfire between the parties is the ease with which newspapers and news programs must quickly change the headline on the front page.
What opens bulletins and websites at 7:00 a.m. may already be forgotten by 1:00 p.m., and what is a topic of conversation at the dinner table may be far behind us by the evening of the same day. This past week is proof that the political agenda has escaped the control of political parties and their leaders. What dominates the scene is not the ability to address society with proposals and initiatives, but the luck of having the wind at their backs and taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the mistakes of adversaries or their clumsiness to recover from the errors they make.
The boarding of the ships of the Flotilla headed to Gaza and the situation of the detainees in this Israeli army operation can serve as a start to the day. But a few hours later it will be enough a ruling by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado for having to redo the header of the information about Spain. And after another handful of hours there will be the reports of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on the misdeeds and the earnings of former minister Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo Those who will break audience records and be the focus of the talk shows. The challenge is constant for parties and leaders, who navigate this turbulent river, forced to stay on their feet and hold onto the rudder to avoid falling, like the old rafters of the Noguera Pallaresa or the Segre. And few have enough skill.
Almeida's crash
These days, it was the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who took a major blow to the benefit of the PSOE. The reason was the municipal debate in which the PP supported Vox's arguments on the advisability of informing women who want to terminate a pregnancy of certain risks. Specifically, the information should be provided to prevent them from suffering later. a supposed post-abortion syndromeShortly after, Almeida had to come out and explain that this syndrome is not a scientific category. The Socialist backlash was lightning-fast, and consisted of Sánchez's own announcement that the PSOE would propose a constitutional reform that would recognize and protect the option for voluntary termination of pregnancy as a fundamental right.
The possibility that a constitutional reform could now be approved is nonexistent. But the PP's slip-up in moving closer to Vox on this matter has been skillfully exploited by the PSOE, the promoter of the two laws that have regulated the right to abortion since the restoration of democracy. It must be taken into account that Spanish society has already fully accepted the current legislation on this right, which has gone from the indications of the first regulation to the woman's freedom of choice without conditions, up to the fourteenth week of gestation.
Social support for the current law on the matter—finally endorsed by the Constitutional Court after thirteen years without deciding to issue a ruling—is overwhelmingly overwhelming. And it obviously has an electoral dimension. The PP's rapprochement with Vox on this matter has been able to mobilize consciences in the sense that it is of interest to the Socialists, who have had a new reason to play with the nightmare of legislation that could be expected from the far right. During Zapatero's time, the PSOE estimated that it had more than 8% more female voters than Rajoy.
The reactions of the Popular Party (PP) to the boarding of the flotilla ships heading to Gaza with humanitarian aid have offered the PSOE a similar opportunity to claim themselves as defenders of human rights and international law. It was clear that the initiative was not going to come to fruition. But the contempt of the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to the members of the flotilla, saying they had already taken advantage of the trip to bathe and that they were a "floating faculty assembly" who would never have attempted to reach Gaza if they believed Israel was committing genocide, will hardly receive the compensation she hopes for. The fact is that there have been significant demonstrations in major Spanish cities against the Israeli army's actions in preventing the flotilla from approaching the shores of Gaza.
The judicial landscape
Now, should we believe that the PSOE is able to change the judicial landscape with these parallel debates? What the PP says is that Sánchez intends to do so. But the truth is that Judge Juan Carlos Peinado's decision because Begoña Gómez, the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, be judged by a popular jury, has been more than confirmed. And also the indications of the involvement of the Cerdán-Ábalos-Koldo plot and its specific language regarding money in the form of banknotes, in this case by the former Minister of Public Works and his former advisor.
This coded language implied that 500 euros were a chistorra (sausage sausage), 200 a single, and 100 a lettuce, due to the different color of the respective bills. The problem is not the denomination of the cash—indicating a desire to conceal it—but the circumstances of the money trafficking and its lack of justification.
In any case, the one who has the closest bench is the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, which will be tried between November 3 and 13The court formed has a conservative majority, and there is still no objective evidence that the prosecutor leaked information that should have been kept secret about Ayuso's partner, businessman Alberto González Amador. He, however, will also appear. in a hearing, accused by the Prosecutor's Office of tax fraud, after his defense proposed negotiating to avoid a sentence that would have meant his client going to prison. All of this is an unusual case from which perhaps no one will emerge unscathed. Meanwhile, we don't know if we'll have a budget or to what extent its absence, if confirmed, could weaken a government determined to make it to 2027 to call elections.
